Florida Air Too Much For Father Lopez

Boys Regional Basketball Playoffs

DAYTONA BEACH -- On a team with multiple nationalities and languages, Florida Air Academy boys basketball Coach Aubin Goporo could have used any number of words to prod his team to play defense.

Whichever ones he chose got the point across.

The Falcons (22-3), a surprise loser to Lake Highland Prep in last week's Class 2A, District 10 championship game, bounced back with a vengeance against eighth-ranked Father Lopez (24-6) Tuesday. The No. 7 Falcons clamped down on the Green Wave with suffocating man-to-man defensive tenacity and scored a 63-36 road victory in region quarterfinal play.

Lopez made only 23 percent of its field goal attempts (nine-of-39). After averaging nearly seven 3-point goals a game for the season, the Green Wave was one-for-14 from beyond the arc against a team that contested every shot, chased every pass and hounded every dribble.

"They put great pressure on us, and we just couldn't get anything going," Lopez Coach Eddie Miller said. "If they play defense like that, they've got a legit shot to win 2A.

FAA, which went 31-0 and won the 3A state championship last season, brought back only one player from that team, backup guard Ahmad Bootie. But two new Lithuanians, 6-foot-7 senior Titas Vainauskas and 6-8 senior Arimas Kieza, have filled a void on the front line, and Sasha Kaun, a 6-10 sophomore from Russia, gave the Falcons a big lift with 10 points against Lopez.